Hosted blogs: good for who? - GoFuckYourself.com

jayeff · 09-17-2006, 05:28 AM

Most affiliates - rightly - think twice before using "free" trade scripts and the like which cost a point or two of traffic, even though such scripts can power a whole site. Yet apparently we are more willing to send traffic off to a sponsor's blog in exchange for a few lines of text and a couple of thumbnails.

Okay, but we get paid. It's no different than sending traffic from a hosted gallery or direct to a tour. Well yes we may get paid, but sending traffic to a blog is definitely not the same as sending traffic to a tour.

With very rare exceptions, tours do not offer much if any free content. The only people likely to bookmark and revisit tours are those considering buying a membership. When a sale isn't made, there is no incentive for the surfer to stop visiting the affiliate site from which he reached the tour.

But blogs are free content sources in their own right. There is something more than faintly ludicrous about the concept of hundreds of affiliates struggling to raise traffic for their own sites yet together generating, virtually overnight, busy blogs for sponsors.

Not only are affiliates pumping traffic to what are essentially competitor sites which could quickly become self-sustaining, but in the process they are filling their own sites with non-original content, making their own job of attracting SE traffic that much harder. And yes, we do all that for the possibility of earning money, but is sending our visitors to the relatively soft sell of a blog likely to be as productive as making the sales pitches ourselves and sending surfers direct to tours or signup forms?

Another positive argument might be that you can add maybe 20 posts to your blog every day without lifting a finger. True. Except can anyone show that this creates more traffic for their blogs than a single, original post each day?

How long does it take to write a short piece of text and upload a pic? 5 minutes? So if you value your time at $50 an hour, that costs you $4 and change. Let's be really generous and say $10. You don't need to take a whole lot of edge off your site's surfer and SE appeal before using feeds which lead to other blogs has cost you a lot more.

09-17-2006, 05:28 AM	#1
jayeff Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 2,944	Hosted blogs: good for who? Most affiliates - rightly - think twice before using "free" trade scripts and the like which cost a point or two of traffic, even though such scripts can power a whole site. Yet apparently we are more willing to send traffic off to a sponsor's blog in exchange for a few lines of text and a couple of thumbnails. Okay, but we get paid. It's no different than sending traffic from a hosted gallery or direct to a tour. Well yes we may get paid, but sending traffic to a blog is definitely not the same as sending traffic to a tour. With very rare exceptions, tours do not offer much if any free content. The only people likely to bookmark and revisit tours are those considering buying a membership. When a sale isn't made, there is no incentive for the surfer to stop visiting the affiliate site from which he reached the tour. But blogs are free content sources in their own right. There is something more than faintly ludicrous about the concept of hundreds of affiliates struggling to raise traffic for their own sites yet together generating, virtually overnight, busy blogs for sponsors. Not only are affiliates pumping traffic to what are essentially competitor sites which could quickly become self-sustaining, but in the process they are filling their own sites with non-original content, making their own job of attracting SE traffic that much harder. And yes, we do all that for the possibility of earning money, but is sending our visitors to the relatively soft sell of a blog likely to be as productive as making the sales pitches ourselves and sending surfers direct to tours or signup forms? Another positive argument might be that you can add maybe 20 posts to your blog every day without lifting a finger. True. Except can anyone show that this creates more traffic for their blogs than a single, original post each day? How long does it take to write a short piece of text and upload a pic? 5 minutes? So if you value your time at $50 an hour, that costs you $4 and change. Let's be really generous and say $10. You don't need to take a whole lot of edge off your site's surfer and SE appeal before using feeds which lead to other blogs has cost you a lot more.